Umbanda () is a religion that emerged in Brazil during the 1920s. It draws elements from Spiritism, Afro-Brazilian traditions like Candomblé, and Roman Catholicism. There is no central authority in control of Umbanda, which is organized around autonomous places of worship termed centros or terreiros, the followers of which are called Umbandistas.
Adherents of this monotheistic religion believe in a single God who is distant from humanity. Beneath this entity are powerful non-human spirits called orixás. In the more Spiritist-oriented wing of the religion, White Umbanda, these are viewed as divine energies or forces of nature; in more Africanised forms they are seen as West African deities and are offered animal sacrifices. The emissaries of the orixás are the pretos velhos and caboclos, spirits of enslaved Africans and of indigenous Brazilians respectively, and these are the main entities dealt with by Umbandistas. At Umbandist rituals, spirit mediums sing and dance in the hope of channeling these spirits, through whom the congregations receive guidance, advice, and healing. Umbanda teaches a complex cosmology involving a system of reincarnation according to the law of karma. The religion's ethics emphasise charity and social fraternity. Umbandistas also seek to reverse harm that they attribute to practitioners of a related tradition, Quimbanda.
Roman Catholicism was the dominant religion in early 20th-century Brazil, but sizeable minorities practiced Afro-Brazilian traditions or Spiritism, a French version of Spiritualism developed by Allan Kardec. Around the 1920s, various groups may have been combining Spiritist and Afro-Brazilian practices, forming the basis of Umbanda. The most important group was that established by Zélio Fernandino de Moraes and those around him in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro. He had been involved in Spiritism but disapproved of the negative attitude that many Spiritists held towards contact with pretos velhos and caboclos. Reflecting Umbanda's growth, in 1939 de Moraes formed an Umbandist federation and in 1941 held the first Umbandist congress. Umbanda gained increased social recognition and respectability amid the military dictatorship of 1964 to 1985, despite growing opposition from both the Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostal groups. Since the 1970s, Umbanda has seen some decline due to the resurgent popularity of Candomblé.
In Brazil, hundreds of thousands of people formally identify as Umbandistas, but the number who attend Umbandist ceremonies, sometimes on an occasional basis, is in the millions. In its heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, Umbanda was estimated to have between 10 and 20 million followers in Brazil. Reflecting a universalist attitude, practitioners are typically permitted to also follow other religious traditions. Umbanda is found primarily in urban areas of southern Brazil although has spread throughout the country and to other parts of the Americas.
Definitions
Formed in the state of Rio de Janeiro during the 1920s, Umbanda combines elements of Spiritism (Espiritismo) with ideas from Afro-Brazilian religions like Candomblé. Additional influences come from Roman Catholicism, as well as Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. The religion's practitioners are called Umbandistas, while the term Umbanda itself may derive from the Portuguese language terms uma banda, meaning "one group".
Umbanda is not a unified religion, having no central institutional authority, and being transmitted in a largely oral manner. It displays considerable variation and eclecticism, being highly adaptable, and taking various different forms. Much of this variation is regional. Several scholars deem it appropriate to talk about "Umbandas", in the plural, as much as a singular Umbanda. Reflecting a general universalist stance that encourages tolerance towards other traditions, Umbandistas are commonly permitted to also pursue other religions, with some also practising Roman Catholicism, Judaism, or Santo Daime.
Reflecting its Spiritist origins, Umbanda has been labelled a Western esoteric tradition. It has also been called an Afro-Brazilian religion, although the scholar of religion Steven Engler cautioned that Africanised ritual elements are not present in all Umbandist groups and that the Spiritist influence is more significant across Umbanda as a whole. There are also Umbandist groups that have adopted Kabbalah, or New Age practices.
Relation to Afro-Brazilian religions
Umbandist groups exist on a spectrum, from those emphasising Spiritist connections to those stressing links with Candomblé and related Afro-Brazilian religions. Groups taking the former position often refer to themselves as practicing Umbanda branca ("White Umbanda"), Umbanda pura ("Pure Umbanda"), or Umbanda limpa ("Clean Umbanda"). The anthropologist Lindsay Hale referred to the more Africanist wing as "Afro-Brazilian Umbanda", while fellow anthropologist Diana Brown called it "Africanized Umbanda". Most Umbandist groups exist at points between these two poles.
In practice, Afro-Brazilian religions often mix, rather than existing in pure forms, and thus scholars see them as existing on a continuum rather than being firmly distinct from each other. Brown noted that the boundary separating Umbanda from Candomblé was largely "a matter of individual opinion". She added that there was "no general consensus" as to what exactly Umbanda is and what it is not. In Rio de Janeiro, a tradition called Omolocô was established as an intermediate religion between Candomblé and Umbanda. Groups combining elements of Umbanda and Candomblé are sometimes termed "Umbandomblé", although this is rarely embraced by practitioners themselves. In the Porto Alegre area, it is common for groups to mix Umbanda with the Afro-Brazilian religion Batuque.
Outsiders sometimes refer to Umbanda as Macumba, a pejorative term for Afro-Brazilian religions. While some Umbandistas have referred to themselves as macumbeiros, often in jest due to the term's negative connotations, Umbandist literature usually uses Macumba in a more restrictive sense to designate baixa espiritismo (low spiritism), traditions that work with lesser spirits for morally questionable purposes. Umbandistas often describe these practices as Quimbanda and emphasise their opposition to them, maintaining that Umbandistas work for good while Quimbandistas work for evil. The boundaries between Umbanda and Quimbanda are nevertheless not always clear, with various spirit mediums engaging or promoting practices associated with both. The anthropologist David J. Hess called the two religions "siblings".
Beliefs
Various Umbandistas have claimed that theirs is not a new religion but an ancient tradition brought to Brazil from elsewhere. Some practitioners have claimed that it derives from ancient Egypt, India, or China, or from the Aztecs or Incas. Others have maintained that Umbanda's origins are either extraterrestrial or from Atlantis. These sorts of origin stories reflect the influence of Theosophy. Brown suggested that these explanations were adopted by Umbandistas eager to dismiss the possibility of their religion having Sub-Saharan African origin. In contrast, various practitioners of Africanised forms of Umbanda have maintained that the religion originally came from Africa.
Theology and cosmology
Umbanda is monotheistic. It believes in a single God who is the creator and controller of the universe, an entity that presides over the astral world but who is distant from humanity. He is sometimes called Olorun, a name of Yoruba origin. Beneath God is a pantheon of spirits that reflect syncretic origins, assembled into what Brown called "a complex, impersonal bureaucracy", and it is these entities thought to intervene in humanity's daily lives.
Although it has no authoritative source ensuring a standardised cosmological belief among practitioners, Umbanda has an elaborate cosmology. An important distinction is made between the material and the spiritual, with the latter considered far superior. Umbandist theology is largely Spiritist in basis, adopting the Spiritist emphasis on reincarnation and spiritual evolution, as well as the hierarchical ranking of spirits according to their "degree of evolution".
Many Umbandistas believe in a three-part cosmos, divided between the astral spaces, the earth, and the underworld. The more highly evolved spirits dwell in the astral realm, spirits incarnated in physical form reside temporarily on earth, while malevolent and ignorant spirits inhabit the underworld. The barrier between these worlds is not impenetrable; spirits from both the astral and underworld realms can visit the earth. Umbandistas often refer to the plano astral (astral plane) as the além (beyond). Sometimes, the realm of the evolved spirits is also called Aruanda, a term that likely derives from Luanda, a port in modern Angola, but which in Umbanda has looser connotations of an area within the astral plane.
The astral world is deemed to be divided into a hierarchy of seven vertical levels, the Sête Linhas de Umbanda (Seven Lines of Umbanda), although the specific identity of each line varies among Umbandistas. This seven-fold division may derive from Theosophy. Each of the Seven Lines is governed by an orixá, a highly evolved spirit who will also have an identity as a Roman Catholic saint. The underworld is also divided into Seven Lines, each of which is led by an exú spirit. Each Line is also internally divided into seven sub-lines; each of these is then divided into seven legions; these divide into seven sub-legions; these into seven falanges (phalanges); and these into seven sub-falanges. Umbandistas often liken this cosmological structure to the organization of an army, and it may reflect the prominent role that various military figures have played in Umbanda's history. The spirits inhabiting these groups are usually arranged on the basis of regional or racial origin.
Orixás
At the top of Umbanda's hierarchy of spirits are the orixás, entities often regarded as deities. The term orixá derives from the Yoruba language of West Africa, as do the names of the various orixás themselves, which in Brazil are also employed in the Nagô or Ketu tradition of Candomblé. Although the names of the orixás are drawn from Candomblé, Umbandistas do not typically interpret these beings in the same way that Candomblé's practitioners do. There is nevertheless variation according to group; African-oriented Umbandistas place particular emphasis on the orixás, while they remain far less important in the rituals of White Umbandist groups.
For Umbandistas, the orixás are God's intermediaries, and represent elemental forces of nature as well as humanity's primary economic activities. White Umbandist groups often perceive the orixás primarily as frequencies of spiritual energy, vibrations, or forces. They are regarded as beings so highly evolved that they have never incarnated in physical form. Like God, they are distant from humanity, permanently residing on the astral plane. Many Umbandistas rarely expect orixás to manifest during rituals, for the orixás are preoccupied with important spiritual matters. They are also thought too powerful for many humans to handle, meaning that their manifestation could be dangerous for the ritual's participants. Instead, the orixás send their emissaries, the caboclos and pretos velhos, to appear in their place.